What Is The Setting Of All The Pretty Horses Book Club Journal

Marie Narojnaia
All the Pretty Horses – Book Club Journal
All the Pretty Horses is a truly insightful novel that through its many oddities and quirks is able to convey a convincing air of realism to both its characters and the events that transpire, no matter how fantastical. For starters, McCarthy has a truly unique writing style, one that almost seems to be a stream of consciousness of sorts, wherein much of the characters’ internal dialogue is left up for interpretation. The large blocks of text, and the quotation mark-less dialogue often make the book harder to parse, as Delany pointed out in the first meeting, but it also allows for much of it to feel as though the reader has submersed directly within the setting of the novel without much
exposition or prior explanation, leaving them to figure out for themselves what is happening and immersing them in the world of the novel as if these are to them real events.
This style mirrors the inherent distractibility and impulsiveness of human nature, and even makes the characters all the more believable. Characteristics such as Alejandra’s impulsive romance, and Rawlins’ almost unreasonable loyalty to John Grady suddenly become more real and relatable. Because of this, I found myself relating and empathising to the events all throughout the novel, and especially towards the character of Alejandra, someone I might have simply overlooked if not for this brutally honest and to the point manner of writing. She is a strong female character with a passionate yet practical approach to everything that happens to her, who the writing style doesn’t romanticise or objectify in the least bit, apart from John Grady’s personal infatuation with her. Yet, despite this strength and independence she portrays she is nevertheless burdened by social expectations of her and her gender, and the restrictions this places on her behavior. She is shown to be a bright and talented young woman, and could obviously accomplish much in her life, and has the ability to take charge, stating, “Whatever my appearance might suggest, I
am not a particularly old fashioned woman” (McCarthy, 135). She is however often unable to make her own decisions strictly due to this gendered bias, as she wishes not to go against the decisions made for her if only to stay in line and not disobey, no matter how it might hurt her. This is something I can personally relate to quite strongly, as I tend to put major decisions in my life up to others I deem more capable, regardless of whether their ruling actually conveniences me at all, and I have a hard time rejecting those decisions, because I believe more strongly in adhering to what is expected of me than challenging this and pushing myself, all of this helping me to further understand the issues of morality within the novel, and just how much a person can be both inherently good and evil, something I discuss further later on.
This book also expresses in this way this notion of the inevitable evil in humankind, no matter how good the intentions, a behavioral pattern commonly seen throughout human nature and history, is a phenomena repeated throughout history, and even in instances as grave as the destruction that had been brought on by Nazi Germany, and WWII generally.
People will happily participate in any sort of evil so long as they are not held accountable. They were happy to commit unthinkable terrors simply because those were the orders given by forces deemed outside their power, and didn’t dwell too long on the moral consequences because they were insignificant to them anyways. Many countries were even forced to side with the Nazis due to circumstance, showing that no matter the good intentions, humans will return to evil without fail if only to convenience themselves. People are really good at rationalising their horrible actions, something that becomes quite evident within the novel itself, with all the immoral, although fundamentally good, people John Grady meets and how he struggles with moral codes. The captain and Emilio Perez repudiate the idea of “tainted money”, saying “If money is good money is good” (McCarthy, 195) regardless of the means it was procured, no matter how immoral. They jeer the young man's opposition to pay for his way out of prison, and it is clear that John Grady becomes a real hero not only due to his idealistic beliefs and his relation to life but also because
he can give up his ideas in situations of restoring justice and saving life. However, in the end even our hero cannot escape the convenience of evildoing, and has to resort to killing another prisoner to survive, leading him to the understanding that there is evil within him as well.
McCarthy manages to express and fortify this notion through the motifs or themes of both death and blood repeated throughout the book, and through all the blood imagery in the novel, stating even “there is no such thing as life without bloodshed” (McCarthy), as Madison had pointed out in the second meeting. The frequent mention of blood (as well as death) serves not only to represent the anger and violence inherent in all people, it being seen as such a dangerous and violent thing, but also as a common bond that connects all people. What John “loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them” (McCarthy, 6).This is not unlike the use of blood as a motif within Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, wherein a near constant referral to blood imagery is used to reinforce the atrocity of the deeds accomplished, as well as a reminder that all evildoings must be paid for in blood, much as they are in All the Pretty Horses, as Emer discussed in the second meeting.
This is not the only relation the novel has to the play, and they also share a this sense or this journey in manhood, the novel taking the reader through a journey discovering what it means to be a man, to mature, and to discover the world for oneself (as John Grady discovers it is the same no matter where he travels, and human nature is universal), meanwhile Macbeth challenges the very meaning of “manhood”, with the many takes characters such as Lady Macbeth and Macbeth himself have at it. Both texts however offer strong insight on the correlation between being a hero, and doing what’s right, and being a “man”, all that the latter entails, and how the two can be rather contradicting.
All in all, I believe that this novel is a great literary work with many well thought out lessons to be taken from, showing the reader how to fight with injustice and how to survive, and teaching them many important lessons still present in present day life.